Happier
by LittleDesiredCullen
Summary: It hasn't hit me yet, though. Even after being the one to call the paramedics and attend her wake and deal with tearful relatives. I still couldn't believe that my mother was dead at all. It was no different than living any other day. You just get use to it. There was just me, the rain, my thoughts, this depressing town, and Alice. I wonder if anything will be normal again. (AH)


_Well, howdy, there! I haven't been too active, with starting college and general "adulting". But I haven't abandoned my account, or A Wanted Desire, I am just having a hard time writing. I have tried with very little process or success, but I am getting there. I cant thank you guys enough for all your love and support. (I see all the reviews, favs and follows. And it makes my heart glow every time)_

_This story here holds a special place in my heart, as some of the themes and events are based on true encounters. I hope you all enjoy!_

* * *

Across the airport, we see each other. I know we're both debating on who is going to take the first step, to say the first word, to make the whole situation seem normal.

I haven't seen Charlie since mom's funeral. He flew back to Forks the same day, because the town depended on him as their only chief of police. And I think he depended on Forks, too.

I can tell that it is all starting to get to him. The way he looks years older. Stubble growing on his face. He looks lost just standing there – lost in his own mind.

It hasn't hit me yet, though. Even after being the one to call the paramedics and attending her wake and dealing with teary eyed relatives, some that I haven't seen in years. I guess I have been forcing it behind a dam where I throw all my other problems.

Some therapist will probably say that it'll get too much for me, that it'll all come crashing down. I wasn't ready for it, though, or prepared. I could barely believe that my mother was dead at all.

It was no different than living any other day. You just go about your day forgetting that something doesn't exist in your life anymore. Then, at some point, you remember and you feel bad and the cycle repeats.

After a while, you just get use to it.

Charlie takes the first step and I follow his lead. We close the distance between us. I awkwardly hold onto my backpack.

"Hi, dad."

He smiles at me and it hurts, because it is more of a grimace. I fight to not look away.

"How was your flight?" He doesn't look me directly in the eyes. I can tell that his mind is somewhere else.

"It was fine." We just stand there, uncomfortable, because none of us knew what to say or do next.

My father clears his throat awkwardly. "How's Phil?"

"Better, I think. He's still staying with his parents," I say to my feet. I don't tell him that Phil was still a mess. Unlike dad, he had cried when mom died. At the funeral, he was doubled over and sobbed with her urn in his hands.

I suppose that was why I was here in the Seattle airport instead of Phoenix. The last I heard, he was thinking of moving to Jacksonville, Florida.

That was just another memory to add to the dam.

He mumbles something that I don't pay attention to, then asks. "Wanna get a coffee?"

It was the only thing I found myself agreeing to.

* * *

Forks had always been home to me. The green use to be comforting. I loved getting lost in the thick forest that surrounded our house and playing on the La Push beach with the kids on the Rez during the summer.

It didn't feel that way, now. Being here just made it all worse. I grew up here. Life had been simple, not perfect, but it was nice back, then. Before mom and dad got divorced, and mom took me with her to live in Arizona when I was thirteen.

I hold onto the coffee that dad got from the dinner in town. Not from the airport, or the many other shops that we pass on the way home, but from the exact place where he would get coffee for mom every morning and afternoon.

I have been probably going there since before I could even crawl.

We throw stabs at small talk, but it either ends short, or fades to an awkward silence where we both scramble to find something else to talk about. Dad gives up after a while and I am grateful.

Mom stands as the elephant in the cruiser. I imagine it'll be like that when we get home, too, and for the next month. Maybe longer than that.

_I wonder if anything will be normal again._

The rain is pouring down when we pull up to the house. Charlie grabs my suitcase, I take my backpack and I find that the rest of my stuff is all in boxes, stacked in the front foyer, as I kick off my shoes and shake the rain from my hair.

I don't even want to think about unpacking – I'll deal with it tomorrow, or maybe the next day. Just not today. I drag my bags upstairs while Charlie orders us a pizza. The house hasn't changed at all since I left a few months ago. There was more dust than I remember, as though it sat unoccupied while I was gone. Everything seems washed out, too – because of the rain, maybe. It just seemed… darker, more lonely.

I walk across the room and flop onto my bed, sinking into the mattress and I close my eyes.

My mind buzzes in the silence. There wasn't the drone of an airplane to distract me, or having to navigate an airport, or coinciding with a divorced, grieving man that I hardly knew.

There was just me, the rain, and my thoughts and this depressing room.

And the fact that I wasn't in Arizona, anymore. That I wasn't in Forks for the summer break.

And that my mother was dead. That she sitting on her new husband's mantel, until the grief wore off and then she would collect dust like another materialized object.

The doorbell rings and Charlie calls me down for the dinner, but my eyes stay fixed to the ceiling and itch with tears.

He doesn't try again, or comes up the stairs to get me. I think he knows.

The sound of the baseball game carries up the stairs. A beer can is opened. I can't even be mad. We are too much alike.

Because I am too afraid to comfort him, too.

I turn over, bury my face into my pillow and cry.

* * *

"You don't have to go, you know, if you don't want to."

I brave myself to open one box. The scent of mom's candles hit me and my chest twists in regret but I continue rummaging for my coffee grinder.

"I want to." It was too easy to lie to Charlie. Really, the only reason I wanted to go to school today was to get out of the house.

I missed Alice, too. I haven't been texting her that much, not since we had to cancel mom's phone plan. I didn't need to tell her anything that has happened over the last two weeks. She probably gathered enough from the town gossip.

That was going to make me a celebrity of the school for the next week. With all the uncomfortable smiles and avoided eyes and awkward pats of forced sympathy, because I was the chief's daughter, but it is all the same to me.

"If you are sure…" he just stands there and shifts from foot to foot. I pretend not to notice but I can't ignore that I feel awful for him.

"You want some coffee?" I ask and double the amount of beans to the hopper, anyways. It was the least I could do. The only comfort that I give to him.

He agrees, too eagerly, but maybe that was just me. He sits at the table and hides behind the Seattle Times and the whine of the grinder fills the silence.

For the first time since the funeral, I am just content to stand here and make coffee like I use to back in Arizona. Measuring out the right amount of beans, boiling the water to the perfect temperature and delicately steeping the coffee for exactly two minutes in the French press.

Mom had always found the process interesting, but in her fashion, too impatient to try it herself. She preferred to have Phill pick her up a coffee from the Dunkin Donuts down the street.

Two cream and one sugar. That was just her motto. Just like how she enjoyed the fat on her steak more the meat itself.

I pour the coffee into two mugs. I don't even wait the two minutes. Charlie wouldn't notice. I was suddenly eager to just escape from the house for the day.

In some ways, dad was like her, too. He took his coffee like her's, just with one extra sugar.

He takes his to-go and departs with a quick thanks and goodbye. I hear the cruiser start up and pull out of the driveway.

I let my breath go. I hadn't even realized I was holding it.

I grab my bag, throw a slice of leftover pizza into a sandwich baggie, down my coffee and began my walk to the school.

It doesn't take long, just fifteen minutes and I take that time to mentally prepare myself, to script out exactly what I was going to say, because people were _going_ to say something.

The building comes into view and my stomach clenches and the whole idea of facing the rest of the town was suddenly something I didn't want to deal with.

I take a detour toward the smoking pit, instead, the usual meeting place for the hicks and the kids that chose to skip class. There was always loud, trashy music, with kids on skateboards, and catcalling to anyone passing by on the sidewalk.

There was even a church across the street. But they only hung around there at lunch.

It was always funny when a police car would drive by and to watch them all scramble away like cockroaches. It was usually Charlie.

I could only hope he wouldn't drive by right now.

"Hey, you got a light?"

I flinch out of my trace. Some guy has chosen to join me, probably a freshman because I didn't recognize him. He stares at me expectedly.

I stare right back him, stupid.

"A light," he repeats. "You got one?" He flicks his thumb as a hint, and suddenly I get it. He wants a lighter.

"She doesn't smoke, Tyler!"

Both of us snap our heads toward the tiny, stomping figure making her way across the staff parking lot.

My heart flutters. Alice hasn't changed at all. She touched up the red dye at the back of her head, maybe, but she looks exactly the same. The same, short, black hair and leather coat and perfect winged eyeliner.

The girl was four foot nothing but not someone to fuck around with.

"I didn't know!" The boy took a step back, because Alice wasn't slowing down. She fished in her purse for a lighter and tossed it over his shoulder and laughed as he scrambled to pick it up off of the sidewalk.

"Freshmen…" She muttered, shaking her head and then finally turned to face me.

The storm cleared from her eyes at once. They were almost sparkling.

"Hug?" She breathed out. I had always been grateful for that – that she asked before attacking me with physical affection. I think she was the only one who ever asked.

I nod and we close the distance. Her arms close around me tightly and we sway. Her hugs always felt bigger than what her tiny arms were capable of. Maybe it was because her heart was just so big.

"You okay?" She whispers in my ear.

I nod again, even though I really wasn't. I don't bother saying anything, I just close my eyes and tighten my arms around her neck and savour the hug, because every other ones since the funeral were all forced and not nearly as warm.

For the first time in two weeks I finally feel like everything wasn't completely messed up.

We pull apart. "I am sorry," Alice says, more heartfelt than all the other apologizes. "That is all I am going to say. When you want to talk, we'll talk."

Another reason why I was so grateful to be Alice's best friend. She knew what it was like, having lost her own mother when she was thirteen to cancer. That year was rough for the both of us. I don't know if it was easier for Alice knowing that she was going to pass away. I don't usually ask questions about what goes on on her side of the world. It had become rocky since her father had remarried.

"Heard' your mom died, that sucks - your dad's the chief of police, right?" That was Tyler. He was eyeing us curiously, me, especially.

The poor kid didn't know what was about to happen to him. Personally, I just ignored him, because that's what I did best. Suffer in silence.

Not Alice, though.

"Do you ever use your brain before running your mouth?" She marched right up to him. I wanted to laugh but I was too stunned. He flinched away from her. "That's why you should be in class, you dipshit. Be more considerate – oh, and give me back my lighter!"

He wasted no time in tossing it back at her and running off. Alice sighed, muttering to herself as she stuffed it back into her purse. "Idiot. I thought he was learning."

"You can't win them all, Al." I say.

She was somewhat of a mother figure to the younger, troubled kids, making sure they went to their classes, giving them a sympathetic ear that they usually wouldn't get from a parent or teacher.

She sighed again. "They are going to suspend him again," She shook her head and turned to me. "You want to get a bite to eat? I don't have class for another hour."

"Sure." I shrug.

_What else did I have to lose?_

* * *

We share a joint in her car and go to sit on the bleachers behind the McDonald's. I only take a drag or two, because the smoke burns my throat and it makes my chest heavy, but it makes me forget about the rest of the world.

"Don't think about it or you'll just get paranoid." Alice reminds me and I stop checking my pulse.

"My heart is beating fast." I muttered.

"That's normal," she tells me and her face isn't judgemental or impatient as she looks my way. "Just ignore it."

And I do, because I trust her. I listen to her as she talks and the rest of the world just slips away. She mentions my mom, but doesn't look afraid that I would break down crying. She wants to make cookies for Charlie and talks about how she wants to take a weekend trip to Iceland with me, maybe to Costa Rica, but we both know we can't afford it.

It makes me wonder if we _could_ – what would happen if we just stayed and didn't come back?

"I go to the Cullen's sometimes for dinner." She confesses and I can't help but stare a little in surprise.

"Mrs. Cullen's house…?" I say slowly, because I still couldn't believe it. She had been our guidance counsellor since the ninth grade. But she was more than that. There's a medium sized fry sitting between us on the bench and Alice takes one, chewing it as she nods.

"Yeah," It doesn't seem to bother her that I am stunned beyond disbelief and she continues onward like that. "Me and Edward were paired up in English class for a project and he invited me over to his place to work on it. I guess it got late and Esme – I mean, Mrs. Cullen insisted me on staying for dinner, so I did. I guess it became like a tradition after that."

_Wow, Edward Cullen. _

"I thought he wasn't into anyone?" The weed was talking for me, now. The trees across the soccer field were looking particularly green. I fixate on it, mesmerized as a gust of wind blew through it.

Alice giggled. "He _isn't. _He has become a brother to me. He is really sweet, they all are…"

Edward slips away from my mind and falls into some void, because I forgot that I mentioned him at all. "What about Mrs. Cullen?" I drawl on. "Is she different? Outside of school, I mean."

"She's _better_," Alice tells me and her eyes sparkle, not quite as red as mine. "She gives _amazing _hugs. It's weird having to call her by her first name, though. She reminds me a lot of my mom…"

I don't draw attention to that last bit. Those things tend to come out of her when she smokes. She doesn't look upset, though, she has this dreamy smile that looks far away. Again, I don't mention it, because I don't really feel like talking about that subject, now. It hurts.

But I feel happy that she is happy.

And it is the happiest I've felt in months.

* * *

_Dosen't hesitate to tell me how you feel about this story. Until next time, my lovelies! xoxo_


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